Abstract
Abstract Background Oesophagectomy is the mainstay of curative treatment for oesophageal cancer and post-oesophagectomy diaphragmatic hernia (PODH) represents a potentially life-threatening surgical complication characterized by an underestimated occurrence rate and unknown related risk factors. This study analyses the experience of two tertiary designated centers in order to evaluate key elements concerning development and treatment of PODH. Methods A cohort of consecutive patients affected by a clinically resectable oesophageal cancer (any T, any N and M0) underwent Ivor-Lewis oesophagectomy between March 1997 and April 2017 according to three different approaches: totally open incision procedure (OILO), hybrid (HILO) and totally mininvasive to esophagectomy (MILO). All patients were retrospectively observed in the context of a postoperative calendarised follow-up in order to record the incidence and postrepair results of PODH. Results 414 patients underwent Ivor-Lewis oesophagectomy for cancer and 22 (5.3%) developed PODH within a median follow-up period of 16 months (6 - 177). Surgical repair was generally applied by the mean of laparoscopic cruroplasty (77%) with a conversion rate of 24%. Postoperative morbidity did not include early recurrences but exclusively cardio-pulmonary complications (5 patients) with one case of respiratory failure leading to death. The discharge was reached after a median hospital stay of 6 days (2 - 95) while 3 recurrences (14%) occurred over a median follow-up period of 10.1 months. A wide univariate analysis identified statistically significant associations between PODH occurrence and the administration of preoperative chemoradiotherapy, the complete pathological response (CPR) and a lymph node harvest (LNH) larger than 33 stations (p-value of 0.016, 0.001 and 0.024 respectively). The strong influence of an extended LNH was confirmed by the multivariable analyses (0.026) along with CPR which should however be considered as longer survival-related bias. Conclusion The minimally invasive surgery and the neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy represent a considerable part of multimodal treatment for oesophageal cancer presenting a not statistically significant association with PODH development while a LNH including more than 33 nodes resulted to be an independent risk factor mirroring the extent of surgical demolition in oesophagectomy. Disclosure All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.
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